Reasonable time to administer spousal pension?

Upzeecreek

Update....called and they are still working on what I'm entitled to and it will be back dated!! How many months does that take?!!  We're on  2 so far. 

Silvertabby

Upzeecreek said:

Update....called and they are still working on what I'm entitled to and it will be back dated!! How many months does that take?!!  We're on  2 so far. 

Covid has a lot to answer for but, as already been said, Capita have never been the fastest kids off the block. 

Ganga

Silvertabby said:

Upzeecreek said:

Update....called and they are still working on what I'm entitled to and it will be back dated!! How many months does that take?!!  We're on  2 so far. 

Covid has a lot to answer for but, as already been said, Capita have never been the fastest kids off the block. 

We have a similar situation with Legal and General ,slow is not the word ,when we rang up to complain they said that they had received the paperwork but allow 38 days to process them ,the other thing is they only pay out on the 21st of the month ,guess what? we have missed another month .

Marcon

Ganga said:

Silvertabby said:

Upzeecreek said:

Update....called and they are still working on what I'm entitled to and it will be back dated!! How many months does that take?!!  We're on  2 so far. 

Covid has a lot to answer for but, as already been said, Capita have never been the fastest kids off the block. 

We have a similar situation with Legal and General ,slow is not the word ,when we rang up to complain they said that they had received the paperwork but allow 38 days to process them ,the other thing is they only pay out on the 21st of the month ,guess what? we have missed another month .

I can understand exactly why you are both frustrated and upset - but the problem is clearing the massive backlog which built up in the early days of COVID. We're talking tens of thousands and in some cases even more, and unless a case is urgent, any queue jumping is done at the expense of further delay for someone else.

Enquiries and contacts to pension scheme administrators increased hugely (for fairly obvious reasons) at a time when staff were having to learn new processes and procedures and scammers were charmed by the extra opportunities being afforded to them by the chaos. One of the major firms of administrators was getting upwards of 10 times the usual number of questions from members and it simply isn't possible, or safe, to hike the staffing levels to cope with that sort of unprecedented upswing. 

I'm not an apologist for the delays, especially those which could and should not have arisen, but you can't train pensions administrators overnight - or not if you want the output to be anything like correct. 

hyubh

Marcon said:

I can understand exactly why you are both frustrated and upset - but the problem is clearing the massive backlog which built up in the early days of COVID. We're talking tens of thousands and in some cases even more, and unless a case is urgent, any queue jumping is done at the expense of further delay for someone else.

Enquiries and contacts to pension scheme administrators increased hugely (for fairly obvious reasons) at a time when staff were having to learn new processes and procedures and scammers were charmed by the extra opportunities being afforded to them by the chaos. One of the major firms of administrators was getting upwards of 10 times the usual number of questions from members and it simply isn't possible, or safe, to hike the staffing levels to cope with that sort of unprecedented upswing. 

I'm not an apologist for the delays, especially those which could and should not have arisen, but you can't train pensions administrators overnight - or not if you want the output to be anything like correct. 

Blimey, I wonder what would be an apologia for you then

Capita - responsible for the only fine from the Pensions Regulator to a public sector scheme...

Silvertabby

hyubh said:

Marcon said:

I can understand exactly why you are both frustrated and upset - but the problem is clearing the massive backlog which built up in the early days of COVID. We're talking tens of thousands and in some cases even more, and unless a case is urgent, any queue jumping is done at the expense of further delay for someone else.

Enquiries and contacts to pension scheme administrators increased hugely (for fairly obvious reasons) at a time when staff were having to learn new processes and procedures and scammers were charmed by the extra opportunities being afforded to them by the chaos. One of the major firms of administrators was getting upwards of 10 times the usual number of questions from members and it simply isn't possible, or safe, to hike the staffing levels to cope with that sort of unprecedented upswing. 

I'm not an apologist for the delays, especially those which could and should not have arisen, but you can't train pensions administrators overnight - or not if you want the output to be anything like correct. 

Blimey, I wonder what would be an apologia for you then

Capita - responsible for the only fine from the Pensions Regulator to a public sector scheme...

I've dealt with backlogs in the past (albeit not as bad as this one) and work is certainly prioritised, rather than done on a 'first come first served' basis.

Deaths and CETVs for divorce hearings were always dealt with first, then retirements, transfers out, estimates, and finally, leavers under age 55.

Ganga

Marcon said:

Ganga said:

Silvertabby said:

Upzeecreek said:

Update....called and they are still working on what I'm entitled to and it will be back dated!! How many months does that take?!!  We're on  2 so far. 

Covid has a lot to answer for but, as already been said, Capita have never been the fastest kids off the block. 

We have a similar situation with Legal and General ,slow is not the word ,when we rang up to complain they said that they had received the paperwork but allow 38 days to process them ,the other thing is they only pay out on the 21st of the month ,guess what? we have missed another month .

I can understand exactly why you are both frustrated and upset - but the problem is clearing the massive backlog which built up in the early days of COVID. We're talking tens of thousands and in some cases even more, and unless a case is urgent, any queue jumping is done at the expense of further delay for someone else.

Enquiries and contacts to pension scheme administrators increased hugely (for fairly obvious reasons) at a time when staff were having to learn new processes and procedures and scammers were charmed by the extra opportunities being afforded to them by the chaos. One of the major firms of administrators was getting upwards of 10 times the usual number of questions from members and it simply isn't possible, or safe, to hike the staffing levels to cope with that sort of unprecedented upswing. 

I'm not an apologist for the delays, especially those which could and should not have arisen, but you can't train pensions administrators overnight - or not if you want the output to be anything like correct. 

Whilst i agree with a lot of what you say ,the Covid excuse is used to often these days ,also i would not expect a financial company just to pay out money willy nilly without doing checks but all we wanted to do was close down my wife,s old pension and take the remaining funds , all of £4200 ,not once has L & G asked if we were desperate for the money and also we ideally wanted the money paying out in last years tax bracket hence starting the process in Feb ,a lesson learnt , next time we are in a similar situation we will start the ball rolling asap.
Sorry to appear to hi-jack someone elses thread.

dawnybabes

The legal and general thing makes sense as I got paid this week.  Hargreaves Lansdown are quoting 8-16 weeks to sort out a straightforward SIPP, and I’m currently at week 10 with Mercer.  All of them are quoting Covid issues.  

xylophone

All of them are quoting Covid issues.  

And no doubt once everybody has been required to return to the office the excuse will be "legacy Covid issues".

SomeMadeUpName

Similar situation to the op with my recently widowed MiL. She sent in all the required docs via email to the admin Co (Mercer) and when my missus rang to chase it Friday (after 6 weeks) they had received all the info but done nothing with it at all.